A delicious fish feast!

Gosh time flies fast! Here are the pix from the fish feast with Manolis, not far from where he and his family live in Athens.

Only € 13 / person, and it is delicious! Unfortunately we had stuffed ourselves with Katerina's lamb lunch only a couple hours before, so we weren't able to come close to finishing everything. But we sure did try!

I'll try to identify everything:

Apologies for the camera strap...but this is the best shot of everything, except for the steamed mussels in cream sauce that they brought just after I snapped this.

1. Fried white fish of some kind. Maybe Manolis can identify. With mashed potatoes, nicely herbed and spiced.

2. Fried kalamari. Basically the same as you'd find in the U.S. at a Greek restaurant.

3. Another fried white fish, this one with nice crunchy salad.

4. Saganaki - Σαγανάκι. This is the same stuff they set on fire and yell "Opa!" for in American Greek restaurants (Greeks think this is really weird, by the way).

5. I don't remember what this was! But it was tasty. :-P

6. Crab salad. Yum!

7. The best tzatziki - τζατζίκι I've ever tasted. Spicy!

8. Greek salad

9. Fried sardines. You eat the whole thing, except maybe the tails.

10. Pickled sardines. Served cold in olive oil. The two sardine dishes were my favourites. But everything was sooo good!

11.  Not pictured: the steamed mussels in cream sauce. I think it was a mustard cream sauce, and unusual for me, but very nice!

Onto the next entry!
 

Monastiraki - Μοναστηράκι

NOTE: all photos are 25% of original size so they will upload faster.

This day (22 Jan) is my first day on the ground, so to speak.

I was wide awake at 4am, despite something like 30 hours with little to no sleep on the trip over. I try to get some more sleep, but finally get up for good around 6:30 and take a shower. I was afraid that there might not be any hot water in the morning, but there was. First shower in nearly 3 days, and it really felt good! Then I pack everything up so I can switch to another room when it becomes available. Breakfast starts at 7:30 and I head down then.

A daylight view of Fivos from outside:

The breakfast included in a stay at Fivos is actually quite nice, and in the Greek style: Hard boiled eggs, salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce), mandarins and oranges, bread, and both green and black Greek olives. I try to lighten the load of my backpack by cramming any electronics I don't think I'll need into my suitcase, then haul everything down to the desk. After securing my luggage at the front desk I head off in search of a phone plan.

The clerk at the desk gave me directions to a few phone stores, all a fair distance away by foot, and I head off in search of them, map in hand.  That's when I remember seeing a COSMOTE store, all sealed up and covered in graffiti, the night before. It's only 2 blocks from the hotel, and it's open! All the graffiti that had given it an abandoned look the night before was just on the roll-up doors that they use to secure to place after closing. I brought my phone from my last trip to Greece with me--an inexpensive affair that I had not charged or switched on for 2 years--on the off chance that it might still be in working order. I left it on the charger overnight at Fivos, but I had no idea if it would still work.

Here's the COSMOTE store:

I explain to the clerk that I want a SIM card with minutes, not a monthly plan, and she sells me a SIM card (with no minutes) for 5 euros. For some reason they always need my passport in order to sell me a SIM card. I haven't been able to figure why they need this. Anyway, we try my phone ... and ... BINGO! it works! Then I go to the counter to pay for my card and pay for €15 worth of minutes. Not a bad deal all-in-all. The desk clerk at the hotel was advising me to buy a phone call, but I think this is much better. It's nice to have Greek family (I'm talking to you Tasos) helping you figure stuff like this out!

Now I can call Katerina (in Athens) and Katerina (in Chania) and let them know what my number is. I arrange to meet Katerina in Monastiraki square at 11:30.

Monastiraki means "little monastery". Here it is:

There aren't many people around because it's not tourist season and it's still relatively early in the day. Here's view looking in the opposite direction, standing not far from where the man in this photo is walking. Note Acropolis in the distance.

They sell some really odd things in Monastiraki Square. Here are some *ahem* bottle openers:

I still had some time before Katerina arrived, so I found a nice café nearby:

Nice presentation. I don't know what that candied fruit is, but they brought it with the coffee, and it is delicious. The coffee was €2 and the sandwich €2. Not a bad snack for €4.00! And yes, that includes tax, so it wasn't €4.37 like it would have been in the US of A.

 

 

It's finally time to meet Katerina, and we go to another café, where I order my first cappuccino freddo.

 

 

Not in the traditional style glass, but delicious!

 

From there we went to a place called "Gassi" (I think), an old gasworks that has been cleaned up and preserved.

 

 

Who's this idiot "adjusting" things?

 

 

He certainly seems to be proud of himself...

 

 

 

Relaxing outside.

 

After this Katerina took me to meet her children: Katerina, Petros, and Georgios. Later Manolis came home from work, and took me out for fish mezes ("littles"). But that's a story for another blog post!

Arrival at Fivos Hostel

Yesterday was a busy, busy day with sporadic internet access, so no chance to blog. Here is some catch-up while on the boat from Piraeus to Chania.

After getting ripped off by the taxi driver (quote from my cousin: "All Greek taxi drivers are crooks!") I arrived at the Fivos Hostel at around 10pm Athens time. My cousin Manolis has been warning me that there have been problems with cleanliness and theft at this place, so I'm on my guard. Lessons learned:

• Don't take the taxi (at least not in Greece, if you can help it)
• Get a suitcase with rollers
• Pay a few more euros and stay at the "Jason Hotel" or "A for Athens Hotel" (I remember having a nice stay there last time I was in Athens)

My room (47) is on the 4th floor (same as the 5th floor in America), I and arrive severely out of breath from hauling all my luggage up 4 flights (there is no elevator) to see this:

...but I'm not there yet, because:

...more steps! And there's no light, so I need to use my flashlight app to see where the keyhole is and open the door.

That's the view after opening the door. What you can't smell is the wall of stale cigarettes. This may be a none-smoking room -- but just since yesterday. No Wi-Fi here: the signal doesn't reach, so to update FB or send messages I have to go out to the hallway. I put in a request for a move, but there are no open private rooms tonight; tomorrow I must talk at the desk. They did switch me, and that room was *much* nicer: no cigarette smell, Wi-Fi reaches, heater works, room isn't freezing (the infamous room 47 was the same temp as outside: around 40 degrees F (4 C). So many things we take for granted!



 

Greetings from Frankfurt!

Well my luggage and I have arrived safely in Frankfurt, and I'm waiting for the flight to Athens--in 2.5 hours. I won't be able to check in for half an hour, so I'm blogging. :-P

The previous two times I flew directly to Crete. They were only able to check my luggage through to Athens, so when I arrived in Athens I had to go out to baggage claim, grab my extra bag, and check it in again to Crete.

Sooo... This time I'm only flying to Athens, and taking a boat from Athens to Chania, so I thought that I wouldn't have to manually transfer my extra bag this time. Silly me! For reasons that are not clear to me (or anyone else I talked to), they were only able to check my bag through to Frankfurt. So once again I manually transferring my extra bag. Well, it arrived okay, and I'll check it in with Aegean Airlines folks when they get here.

I picked up some euros here in the Frankfurt airport (my bank has agreement with DeutscheBank so there are fewer transaction fees. No agreement with any Greek banks.)

I was planning on buying a phone in the Athens airport, but the store that sells phones closes at 2100, but my flight doesn't arrive until 2200. Ah well, I'll get it tomorrow.

That's all for now!

Jason

Flight is tomorrow!

Hi everyone!

I'm leaving for Greece tomorrow, and what a journey it has been getting ready.

My contract with Xbox ended 31 December 2015, so I figured now would be a good time to flee the country, so to speak. I've been practicing my Greek using Pimsleur, and hope to fare better this time at picking up the language.

This is a time of major transition for me, and I'm really excited!

• My time at Xbox Mastering Lab has drawn to a close. It is time to move on; I've been doing this for over 5 years now!
• Also, I moving out of my current living situation sharing a house with my good friends Mark & Karin. They have been, and continue to be, an inspiration to me. So it is with some sadness that I take my leave, but it is time to move on. I still don't know where I will be living when I return from Greece, but I can figure that out later.
• I will be spending the next 3-5 months in Greece, trying to learn as much Greek as possible, and to connect with my family there (near Chania) and the people.
• When I return to the U.S., I will begin the Master's program in Computational Linguists at the U.W., which I've been thinking about ever since I graduated back in 2004.

It was quite stressful getting everything in my room boxed up--moving is always so stressful--and I realise that although I'm not quite a hoarder, I do have quite a tendency to accumulate crap. This will bear watching.

Okay, for those of you curious about the details: I leave for the airport by Uber at 4 am tomorrow. I hope it all works out ok, as I've never used Uber before. I would have used Lyft, but they don't have an app for Windows Phone. :-(

I fly to Las Vegas and spend ... what? SEVEN HOURS? *sigh* Oh well I was just looking for the cheapest flight. Then from Las Vegas to Frankfurt. Only a three-hour layover there. I'll hit up the ATM for some euros there. Then from Frankfurt to Athens, where I will arrive at around 10:00 PM Athens time. I'm going to stay in a hostel there in the Monastiraki area for three days, then take a boat to Chania.

It's unlikely that I'll post anything more until Thursday, from Monastiraki. I hope to meet with my cousins who live in the Athens area on one of these days. Also, I hope to buy some begleris (μπεγλέια) there; the rugged kind that are good for doing tricks. I lost mine long ago, and I will be rusty. Here's a video of someone showing how to do some basic tricks:

https://youtu.be/EwrUMqC2h_I

Some begleri tricks

Well that is all for now. I need to get everything buttoned up and drop my car off at my very generous friend's house who is letting me keep it in her driveway while I'm away.

Here's a photo of Dash; first photo I've taken with my laptop.

Now I need to figure out how to change the subtitle of this blog; it's no longer accurate!

En agape,

Jason